911 call depicts scene of Ohio State student’s murder

Heather Campbell (right) and her mother on Jan. 28. Campbell was found dead from an apparent murder-suicide involving her boyfriend Sunday morning. Credit: Courtesy of the ‘Remembering Heather Campbell’ Facebook page

An Ohio State floor mat marked the apartment where fourth-year psychology major Heather Campbell and her boyfriend, Kyle Lafferty, were found dead from an apparent murder-suicide Sunday morning.

The couple of eight months had just moved in together for the first time in August. Campbell always left her front door unlocked.

That is what allowed her best friend and neighbor at the Taylor House apartment complex, located at 5001 Olentangy River Road, to come check on her in the couple’s home early Sunday morning after not hearing from Campbell for 24 hours.

“I just walked into my best friend’s apartment and her and her boyfriend are laying on the kitchen floor dead and bleeding,” the panicked best friend said to a Columbus Police dispatcher on her 911 call.

Lafferty, a recent graduate of U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, a prestigious naval engineering school, used a handgun in what Columbus Police are investigating as a murder-suicide. The police incident report listed Lafferty as a “habitual offender.”

“I refuse to go back in there,” she said during the call. “I literally walked in their front door and they’re right there. Because she lives in my apartment building and she hasn’t answered my phone calls since yesterday. So I went in there and the door was unlocked and they were right there on the floor.”

The call log from also shows that police were at the couple’s unit the night before.

Katrina Beach, a 911 caller from the night before and resident of the apartment above Campbell’s at Taylor House, said she heard three gunshots after “extreme” arguing and banging.

One of the three gunshots ended up in the ceiling, according to the call log.

“What happened was I heard extreme arguing and I heard loud banging and it was terrifying,” Beach said to the 911 dispatcher Saturday. “And I went downstairs I said to my boyfriend ‘That sounds like domestic violence, we need to go downstairs.’”

Beach and her boyfriend, both in wheelchairs, went downstairs toward the early-morning disturbance.

“Literally just as I was passing the door I was listening outside to decide whether I should call the police and I heard three loud gunshots right after another,” Beach said.

Beach and her boyfriend then went outside to call the police from the parking lot.

“I’m outside, I don’t feel safe,” Beach said on the call. “He actually parks near me. I know this. I don’t know his name because he moved in recently and I know he parks near me.”

According to The Dispatch, police officers repeatedly knocked on the door of the apartment Saturday morning and received no answer. They then left at 3:04 a.m.

According to the police log, the calls came in at 2:33 and 2:34 a.m., Sunday and Saturday respectively. Columbus Police arrived at the apartment at 2:40 a.m. Sunday to find the couple on the kitchen floor.

A medic on the scene pronounced the two dead at approximately 3:16 a.m. Sunday.

Campbell’s neighbor across the hall, Hunter Johnson, had just gotten home from work when she saw the crime scene, with police officers blocking the view inside the blood-stained apartment.

Johnson said in an interview she immediately knew something was wrong because the golden retriever puppy the couple had just gotten was not barking.

“The dog is always barking,” Johnson said. “But this time the dog wasn’t barking. It was just whimpering as I walked by.”

Update, 11:12 p.m.: This article has been updated to clarify which day the calls 911 calls were made.

So the cops just left the scene after the first call? If they had broken in, maybe they would have had a chance to save the wounded couple. If the victim’s friend had not opened the door, the police would have never be able to find the corpse. The law should give the police more power in emergency to stop crime and save people.

What a tragedy. Nevertheless, despite the ‘protect and serve’ decals on their vehicles and badges, U.S. peace officers have no legal obligation to protect a person from harm; rather, peace officers’ duty is law enforcement. This legal doctrine have been validated through many cased in both federal and state judiciary systems: Warren v. District of Columbia, Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, DeShaney v. Winnebago County, and Doe v. Calumet City, with the first and last cases being extremely agonizing.

The government is not here to protect you. You are ultimately responsible for your own safety. Stay vigilant.

I believe the police had the legal authority to go in but they made a judgement call not to. Apparently, all they had to do was turn the door knob and they would have had easy access. Perhaps they could have been able to save someone’s life as well. If someone reports gun shots (especially in an area like that where gun shots would be an exceedingly rare occurrence) I don’t understand why they wouldn’t investigate more thoroughly!!!

Omg, police are such earth shattering morons. They receive calls about hearing gunshots at 3 in the morning, had just been there the night before for domestic violence, the door was unlocked, but they never enter the apartment…!!!??? Boy, they make Barney Fife look like Sherlock Holmes for God’s sake. They really should give cops IQ tests before entering the force. I mean this is common sense served on a silver platter, my friends. It’s horrifying knowing what’s out there “protecting and serving” us. Use your brains, not just your testosterone levels.

Was it really necessary to mention the first 911 caller, Katrina Beach, and her boyfriend were both in wheelchairs? It didn’t serve any purpose to the overall story other than to define these two people by their disability.